Huscarls
Veteran Assault Terminator of the 2nd Assault Echelon, 6th Company in Cataphractii Pattern Terminator Armour and outfitted with a Power Fist; note that this Astartes is depicted wearing the black and gold of his particular company heraldry while the armourial shield at his shoulder indicates membership of a senior vanguard assault formation. It was a Veteran like this who would have served among the Huscarls.]] The Huscarls were an elite formation within the Imperial Fists Legion during the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy eras of the late 30th and early 31st Millenniums. They served as the Honour Guard and praetorians of the Primarch Rogal Dorn. The Huscarls were first led by Captain Archamus, who bore the honour of being the "Last of the First," those Imperial Fists first created after Rogal Dorn was reunited with the Emperor and given command of the VII Legion. They were also the first to make their oaths to Rogal Dorn, and their names were the first to be etched on the walls of the Temple of Oaths aboard their mobile star-fortress Phalanx. After Archamus' death at the Battle of Pluto where he saved Dorn's life from a mortal assault by the Primarch Alpharius, command of the Huscarls fell to Archamus' second-in-command, Sergeant Kestros, who also took the name Archamus in honour of his commander's valour and sense of duty. By the time of the latter years of the Horus Heresy, Archamus was the last of this honoured brotherhood. A contingent of the Huscarls escorted their Primarch aboard the Warmaster Horus' flagship, the Vengeful Spirit, during the climax of the Horus Heresy at the Battle of Terra. It is not known whether or not any of these valiant heroes survived this boarding action. it is unknown if this formation still exists in some form in the Imperial Fists Chapter of the late 41st Millennium. In the Era Indomitus after the inclusion of the Primaris Space Marines in the Imperial Fists, the Huscarls were reestablished as a special elite unit within the Chapter by the order of the resurrected Primarch Roboute Guilliman. However, instead of serving as an Honour Guard for the Chapter's officers, this new incarnation of the Huscarls was tasked with leading the defence of individual worlds that were of great strategic importance to the Imperium. The Huscarls were now composed of those Imperial Fists who displayed the greatest skill and knowledge in constructing planetary defences and were expected to be capable of organising the defences of an entire star system, much as Rogal Dorn had once done for the Sol System during the Horus Heresy. Notable Huscarls *'Archamus' - Archamus was a Captain of the Imperial Fists who served as the commander of the Huscarls. Archamus was less emotional and more in tune with the emotions of his gene-father than the VII Legion's First Captain Sigismund. Archamus was a highly suspicious and careful individual, who had shown great disdain for the Word Bearers even before they revealed their treachery, almost as if he had sensed it upon them. Archamus was born with the name Kye on Inwit in the early ninth century of the 30th Millennium. After Rogal Dorn swore his oath to serve the Emperor, Kye was one of the first natives of Inwit to be inducted into the Legion under his command, an honored fraternity that later became known in the Legion as "The First." During his training as an Aspirant, Kys bonded closely with his squadmates Archamus and Yonnad. As part of the brutal training, the trio were forced to fight Combat Servitors together. During one such action Archamus died saving Kye's life. When Kye was subsequently inducted into the Imperial Fists and said his vows before Rogal Dorn, he took the oath name Archamus in honour of his lost friend. Archamus would eventually rise to become Dorn's trusted praetorian and captain of his Huscarls honour guard. Throughout the Great Crusade and then the Horus Heresy, all of the members of The First save Archamus were slain, leading to his new appellation of "the Last of the First." During the Solar War, Archamus was charged with investigating Alpha Legion activity across the Sol System. Working with his trusted second Sergeant Kestros and the Luna Gene-Cult Psyker Andromeda-17, Archamus was eventually able to deduce that the Alpha Legion intended to assault Pluto. During the subsequent battle, Archamus was impaled by Alpharius himself as Rogal Dorn arrived. As Dorn and Alpharius clashed, the wounded Huscarl saw that Alpharius was prepared to deliver a killing stroke and tried to intervene, but reeled harmlessly off of the Alpha Legion Primarch's Pale Spear. Archamus was unaware that Dorn had actually seen the death stroke coming, and the Imperial Fists Primarch had chosen to deliberately step into the blow in an attempt to pin Alpharius in place by lodging his weapon in Dorn's own flesh. Dorn succeeded in slaying the treacherous Primarch with his own massive Chainsword, Storm's Teeth. In a rare moment of deep emotion, Dorn admitted to his gene-son that he had failed him. But as Archamus died, he rejected this, for he was not the Primarch's son but his praetorian, and he had done his duty. In the aftermath of Archamus' death, his second-in-command Kestros became commander of the Huscarls. Kestros also took up the name of Archamus in memory of his commander. *'Kestros' - Kestros was a Sergeant of the Imperial Fists and the second-in-command of the Huscarls for much of the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy eras. When Captain Archamus was killed by Alpharius during the Battle of Pluto, Kestros became the new commander of the Huscarls. He thereafter took on the name of Archamus in memory of his commander's honour and extraordinary sense of duty. Kestros, now called Archamus, would be the first to greet and question Vulkan when the Salamanders Primarch emerged from the Webway on Terra. *'Lieutenant Heyd Calder' - Heyd Calder was an Imperial Fists Primaris Lieutenant and one of the members of the new incarnation of the Huscarls raised by Roboute Guilliman in the Era Indomitus after the birth of the Great Rift. His mastery of the arts of war was said to be matched only by his skill at diplomacy. He led the defence of the Cardinal World of Almace in the Odoacer System alongside an Indomitus Crusade strike force composed of White Scars and Raven Guard Astartes from an assault by the Chaos forces of the Word Bearers led by the Chaos Lord Amatnim Ur-Nabas Lash. Beneath the surface of Almace was an imprisoned Word Bearer, who was the true target of the Chaos invasion. Lash had discovered the existence of the prisoner during an invasion of an Imperial Ecclesiarchy world that contained the lost Word Bearer's extensive writings. To Lash's surprise, they were passages of the Word Bearers' Primarch Lorgar's Lectitio Divinitatus and it appeared that the Ecclesiarchy had incorporated many of its words and ideas into the original teachings of the Imperial Creed. Soon afterwards the Chaos Lord received a vision he thought came from his Primarch which ordered him to free the captured Word Bearer. This led Lash to believe he would be the one to end Lorgar's self-imposed isolation within the Eye of Terror and allow the Daemon Primarch to bring the fractious Word Bearers under his direct command once again. In order to fulfill his destiny, Lash began looking for the prisoner and gathering the warhost he would need to free the Word Bearers' lost brother. Centuries later, he finally discovered the prisoner's location was on the world of Almace and he brought this news to the Word Bearer's Dark Council, whose Dark Apostles ordered a Word Bearers assault on the Cardinal World. After hearing Almace's plea for aid from the Cardinal-Governor Eamon, Calder and his Primaris Marines began to fortify the system as best they could. The strike force's warships attempted to slow Lash's oncoming fleet down, but found themselves heavily outnumbered by the Word Bearers armada. While Lash lost a number of warships to their attacks, the Chaos Lord set several ambushes which destroyed most of the Indomitus strike force's fleet. This left only the Imperial forces defending Almace to stop him, but before they reached the Cardinal World, Lash was forced to confront his rival the Dark Apostle Lakmhu. Lash could not afford to have the Dark Apostle betray him in the course of the assault. He ordered Lakmhu and the other agents within his force who served the Dark Apostle Erebus' faction within the Word Bearers, opposed to his own faction which favoured Kor Phaeron, to seize Almace's Primus asteroid facilities, which lay close to the world. Lash hoped his rivals would die in the attempt, but if not the Chaos Lord intended to eliminate Lakmhu and his allies himself after the long sought after prisoner was liberated. Lash unleashed his hordes on the Cardinal World and what followed was a massacre as the Chaos Lord's forces overwhelmed the Imperial defenders. Lieutenant Calder led a desperate failed attempt to stop the Chaos Lord from advancing on the planet's palace. Lash easily overpowered the lieutenant and was about to kill him when the prisoner the Word Bearers had come to free unexpectedly intervened on the Imperial forces' behalf. Revealed to be a Word Bearers Contemptor Dreadnought named the Anchorite, he uttered a word of Colchis' ancient lost language, which created a bright light that banished the Chaos Lord's daemon allies back to the Warp. Left surprised by the Anchorite's actions, Lash greeted his lost brother and told the Dreadnought they had come to bring him back to his Legion. To his shock, the Dreadnought immediately refused the offer. Though he was left confused by the Anchorite's answer, the Chaos Lord told the Dreadnought to stand aside so that the Word Bearers could kill those who had imprisoned the Anchorite for millennia. Instead, the Anchorite attacked the Chaos Lord while he decried the lies the Chaos Gods and Lorgar had told the Word Bearers, which had led to their damnation. As he fought, the Anchorite praised the God-Emperor for saving his soul and roared passages from the Lectitio Divinitatus. In a rage at this betrayal, Lash destroyed one of the Anchorite's arms, but the Dreadnought fought on. Because the Word Bearers had been ordered to bring the Anchorite back alive, the Dreadnought was able to kill many of the Word Bearers before Imperial reinforcements finally arrived. With that, the Word Bearers' were defeated and Lash was confronted by Lieutenant Calder. As his forces were killed around him, Lash told Calder that even though they were defeated, the Word Bearers had truly won a victory on Almace. The Anchorite's existence had been revealed and the truth that the Imperial Creed was based on Lorgar's Lectitio Divinitatus could not be denied. They both followed the same path originally laid down by Lash's Primarch. The only difference between them was that the Word Bearers were farther down upon that path than the Imperium. A vindicated Lash made no attempt to defend himself as Calder fatally struck him down with a blow from his Power Sword. Sources *''Apocalypse'' (Novel) by Josh Reynolds, Chs. 1-2, 13, 15, 17, 18, 19, 26 *''The Lightning Tower'' (Short Story) by Dan Abnett, pp. 7–8 *''The Horus Heresy Book Three - Extermination'' (Forge World Series) by Alan Bligh, pg. 70 *''Crimson Fist'' (Novella) by John French *''The Purge'' (Novella) by Anthony Reynolds *''Praetorian of Dorn'' (Novel), by John French, Part 4, Chs. 4-6; Epilogue *''Old Earth'' (Novel) by Nick Kyme, Chs. 30-31 Category:H Category:History Category:Imperial History Category:Imperial Fists Category:Imperium Category:Space Marines